Multimedia Items

Just as a rainstorm in the desert can cause the landscape to explode with wildflowers, the annual sea ice melt can cause phytoplankton in the Arctic Ocean to […]

WHOI marine biogeochemist Mak Saito snapped this image of two Emperor penguins while working in Antarctica in November 2009. Over the past two years, Saito and his colleagues […]

A plexi-glass reservoir holds orange microbial material slurped up by the vacuum sampler on the towed vehicle Camper, as well as tiny black shards of volcanic glass that covered […]

Viewed in polarized light and magnified 10 times, this thin-section sample of a skeleton of a Pacific reef-building coral, Acropora gemmifera, looks more like abstract art. The skeleton is […]

A curious penguin observes a group of scientists temporarily squatting on an icy terrain in Antarctica. WHOI scientist Ben Van Mooy (right) is leading a team that will core […]

Clearing ice from the decks of the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy was a regular task for ship’s crew during a 2011 cruise into the Arctic. WHOI biologist Read More

This oceanographic tool— a Van Veen grab sampler—collects seafloor sediments. It’s probably not the first thing you might expect to find on a research cruise led by a physical […]

In 2007, John Kemp was lowered in a metal basket from the icebreaker Oden to try to retrieve an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Puma visible just beneath Kemp’s long metal pole. Kemp, who […]

The bow of the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy plows a path through sea ice in the Beaufort Sea. Evidence of Earth’s changing climate is especially visible in the […]

Starfish and shrimp graze on a microbial mat on a decaying giant sponge near the summit of Karasik Seamount beneath the Arctic Ocean. The scene was filmed during an Read More

The hybrid remotely operated vehicle Nereid Under Ice (HROV NUI) returns from a dive to the deck of the icebreaker Polarstern in October of last year. WHOI senior scientist […]

George Vince’s cross is a popular destination for visitors to McMurdo Station, the U.S. research base in Antarctica, and New Zealand’s Scott Base. MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student […]

Antarctic science comes in all sizes. In 2006 two research ships and an inflatable boat, all carrying scientists, were juxtaposed against the slopes of volcanic Deception Island off Antarctica: […]

On an endless summer day in 2007, WHOI scientists gathered at the gateway to the Arctic Ocean in Longyearbyen (population 1,800), the largest settlement on the Norwegian island of Svalbard, […]

WHOI biologist Cabell Davis served as principal scientist on the Elysium Artists for the Arctic Expedition in fall 2015 led by Michael Aw of the Explorers Club to raise […]

WHOI engineer Loral O’Hara installs a new shroud over one of the maneuvering thrusters on the Nereid Under Ice (NUI) remotely operated vehicle. NUI is connected to pilots aboard […]

A polar bear pulls itself onto a small floe to rest between seal-hunting forays. The volume of sea ice in the Arctic has declined sharply in recent decades, with […]